


Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?

by rosekay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-20
Updated: 2006-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-07 10:14:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/429882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosekay/pseuds/rosekay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John has a plan, but he doesn't know where he's headed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been?

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LJ in 2006.

The first time he sees her, he's wearing a worn uniform and a weary expression, and she spits at his feet. He thinks of friends' faces ground into the mud, the taste of swamp water and blood in his mouth, and a brown, skinny arm breaking in his hand. She has a golden cloud of hair that soaks up the sunlight and beautiful eyes, but he can't even look at her. 

The second time, he notices the strong line of her jaw, used to jutting out in stubborn displays and the gentle laugh lines at the corners of her eyes. He's wearing no uniform this time, but she still doesn't speak to him. He sees her wild, flyaway hair, bare feet and the gentle curve of her breasts unbound beneath her shirt, and thinks he knows her. 

The third time, he discovers that her voice is sweet and low, a wide, cutting sloop. She tells him she likes his _deep like whiskey_ even though he's an dumb grunt _jarhead, he corrects; she ignores him_ , an ignorant cog in the wheel of a fucking fascist regime. 

The fourth time, he decides that the long, even column of her neck as she chugs her beer is one of the most beautiful sights he's ever seen, until she looks him straight in the eye and tells him to pay the fuck attention to the movie _it's an important documentary - you'll learn a lot_ and stop groping her. He thinks that's when he knew he was a goner. 

The fifth time, the slick, hot inside of her mouth against his tongue sends a line of heat straight to his cock. She's spit and grass and girl. He wants to wash, to taste, to drink. He leans back, cups her face, just stares at the ripe curve of her lips and the flush high across her cheekbones. A few strands of her hair are plastered against the corner of her mouth, and smiling, he gently lifts a hand to brush them away. 

He starts losing count because everything seems to be going too well. His buddies from the Corps tease him over beer and memories for dating a fucking bra-burning hippie. But it's only when, greased with enough booze, they start admitting that she's beautiful, with a fine, fine - _all right, Winchester, calm down_ that he threatens to put his fist anywhere.

He grins through an awkward dinner with her friends - protesters, feminists, avante-garde, the list goes on - hennaed hands, crazy hair and crazier ideals all around the table. Their ideals thicken the air, and he's liable to choke. 

They eye him suspiciously, mouths tight and comments swinging between obliquely insulting and deliberately frosty, but hey, they don't have he's got, he thinks, drawing one foot up her calf, ignoring her quick glare _no wonder they're all so sour._

The two of them count it a victory when no one comes to blows at the wedding _I told you not to wear the uniform, John._

A blissful couple weeks follow, spent in a languid, loose limbed haze. She tangles her long, long legs with his in the bed and breathes the sweet, acrid cloud of smoke right into his mouth. 

Head floating and grin wide, he has a little trouble getting it up, but it's still the best sex he remembers _he swears to her later that he does, remember, he means._

Dean is a happy baby, all sweet smiles and wide eyes. He was cheerful and quiet even in her belly, warm under her warmer skin. He loves getting John to laugh, but he's most comfortable with her. John likes watching the two of them, curled up in bed together, foreheads touching and bright hair mingling in a language of open grins and sweet murmurs; they share laughs and secret smiles. 

Sammy arrives bawling and doesn't care to stop until he's near six months. He'll only quiet down for her, and sometimes his brother, but he holds his father's fingers the tightest, little face scrunched up in something that might be love. 

The last time he sees her, her mouth's half open in her white face, and he thinks she's about to tell him something, but then she's swallowed up and he never knows for sure.

***********

When he finally looks at himself, he sees an old man, gray at the temples, with two grown sons, one brittle, the other flown.

He's tired, God, and he closes his eyes, tries to find that place _that's right, Winchester, think of home, your Momma, apple pie, your girl, and not these fucking Gooks_. 

When he sees her smiling face, young and untouched, in his head, he can see the road but it just keeps curving further and further away from him.

Her face starts to blur - not the features themselves, he's got pictures, Sam, Dean, other things, but the _real_ memory of her. 

It feels like he's losing one more thing every day: the way she canted her head when he laughed at her or that one developing wrinkle high on her forehead, how she smelled the night they both almost got cold feet, the pattern of her fingers on his thigh. 

He's a man, not a demon, and he can't keep these things forever.

But the worst, the worst, is when he loves her so much, misses her so much, that her memory starts to hurt. It's a hot reminder of his failure, of something that's never coming back. 

Her face behind his closed eyes burns instead of comforts. He looks at Dean and sees someone else.

She becomes just an ache in his chest, all the sweet, real little details pared away like warm flesh from bone, until all that's left is the road ahead, straight and true. 

The worst is when he sees the vision of her _terrible and beautiful_ in his head, and he starts to hate her.

***********

The first time he sees her, she's right next to him in the Impala while Dean is wrestling with a tetchy Sammy in the back. She looks exactly the same, and just stares straight ahead at the road, silent and serene. Then she turns and looks at him, lips slowly curling into a smile.

The second time, Sammy and Dean are asleep in the next room, and he wakes up _or is he still dreaming_ to her face hovering right above his. His throat tightens. His tongue still wants to taste. She leans down to kiss him, and the warm brush of her lips is the same too, but he swallows the sharp bite of pomegranate and the bitterness of ash. He's afraid to open his eyes again and he does not cry _liar_. 

The third time, they're on a job, and there's a ghost who walks toward him. It stinks of death and rot, the flesh coming off its fingers in strips when it lifts a hand to touch his cheeks. The skin's ashen in places and melting off its frame in ropes, raw ridged flesh on florid display. But then he looks at the line of the jaw and what's left of its eyes and he knows _oh God_. She sighs against his cheek, and he can smell her clean scent under the stench of burning flesh. 

The fourth time, Dean is wearing one of John's old shirts, one that she'd always slipped into, ripe mouth open just so, and face a little tired. But he's got a strong jaw used to jutting out in stubborness and laugh lines at the corners of his eyes, which are beautiful. When he smiles, John thinks of long legs and the whisper of skin on skin. Something hot uncurls in his gut, and he can't look at his son. He hates her then, for taking even this from him. 

The fifth time, he's sure it must be someone else, warm and breathing and alive, but she just turns to look at him, mouth unsmiling and eyes steady. 

He wishes that she'd spit at his feet or that the sunlight would light her hair, but it doesn't touch her. 

He isn't given a last time.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, Joyce Carol Oates. I was young and watching SPN.


End file.
